Epidural Injections May Not Be an Effective Back Pain Treatment

Epidural steroid injections have been a common non-surgical treatment for individuals suffering from lower back pain. Reports from the UK and the U.S. also show that these treatments appear to be on the rise and becoming more common.

Even though these treatments are on the rise, there remains a lot of controversy over the effectiveness of epidural steroids as treatments for back pain. While there have been some reports from patients who have experienced short-term pain relief, there are many skeptics and contestations about the long-term benefits of epidural steroid injections as a pain relief treatment method for lower back pain.

A new study took an in-depth look at the effects that this treatment method had along with saline injections performed on more than 130 patients. All of the patients suffered from lower back pain for a period of 12 weeks.

There were three treatment methods given to each participant of the study including:

Steroid injections

Saline injections

Placebo injections

The interesting thing was that even after the milestone checks at 6 weeks, 12 weeks and 1 year there weren't any noticeable differences between the patients. The study measured significant differences according to a few things such as pain levels, quality of life, and disability. At the end of the study, the results were that epidural steroids and saline injections were not a significant or effective pain relief method for lower back pain.

If you are experiencing lower back pain, we recommend scheduling regular chiropractic visits and spinal tune-ups in order to maintain your overall health. This is even more important to look into if you are considering trying epidural steroids or saline injections to treat your back pain.